Sip
by JustClem
Summary: Love always comes out of a coffee shop. Always.


**Author's Note**

I feel obligated to tell you that this, along with the 3 other Terminator fics I'll post, is a fan fiction of the newest movie **Terminator: Dark Fate**, and not the movies from before. It features characters from the recent movie, and the characters from the old movies will be written in their newest version.

However, due to FFnet not having added Grace and Daniella Ramos as characters, I am unable to include them in the tagging. This is a romance story between Dani and Grace.

Hope you'll enjoy.

* * *

Grace eyes the sign above the coffee shop with weariness in her eyes.

_The Cafe of Ramos_, it says.

What's that? German? Greek?

She wouldn't know. She's no bilingual, and the only reason why she understands a tad bit of French is because she needed it to pass Freshman year.

Grace looks down to the stack of books she holds in her arms alongside her laptop. This is the only coffee shop she's seen closest to her school. She would try to do the assignment at home, but she wants coffee, and maybe something to eat as well. Something like waffles or pancakes or, who knows, maybe a cheap piece of cake.

This place doesn't look all that impressive. Hell, she thinks it isn't even trying to look impressive. It's small-looking, and has a blackboard with no writing whatsoever. No _good morning_s, no _welcome_s. Nada. Just a whole lotta blank blackness.

Eh. Good enough.

Grace trudges in. Surprisingly, there's no bell above the door that rings to signal a customer's arrival. The place looks cozier than expected. Brick walls, light-colored wooden planks as floors, high ceiling, large windows, and loads of plants and Christmas light despite it being June.

So maybe this place _does_ try to look impressive.

It's empty too, which is always a plus.

Grace walks up to the coffee place, and spots no one. "Um, hello?" She tries to peek through the back door, where she can kind of see someone moving around. She opens her mouth, then closes it, deciding that whoever they are will approach her once they're ready.

Grace sits down at the corner of the booth, and begins to work at her assignment, all the while regretting her life choices to willingly want AP Science.

A thunk on the table snaps her out from her study zone. Grace looks up and—

Oh.

Oh, _wow. _

Brown eyes bordering on hazel. Curly hair. Olive skin. A combination of soft and sharp features in all the right places. A smile with faint dimples on the cheeks. A messy bun. A pencil on the ear. A mug on one hand, the other resting on her waist—which has a nice curve, Grace realises. In fact, everything about her is nice.

Does this coffee shop hire angels?

Aaaand now Grace has trouble functioning as a human being.

The girl is looking at her, expectant. Grace looks down at the mug she's still holding, and looks up at her again. It takes her an embarrassingly long while to gather her voice. "I didn't order anything yet."

"I know." And the girl doesn't sound apologetic either. She just gives a shrug. Eso sí que es, she supposes. "But you look like you need this." The girl pushes the mug to her direction, insistent.

_Well, I did come here for the coffee. _Because why else would anyone come to a coffee shop? To find love? Tsk. Right. As if anyone can find love in a coffee shop.

"Thanks." Grace takes a sip, and brightens at the combination of sweetness and bitterness, its deliciousness added by the warmth of the beverage, not bordering on scalding. "Oh, wow, what is this?"

The girl winks at her, grinning toothily, as though she's expected Grace's reaction. "The special Daniella frappuccino, with a blend of sweetness." She puts her hand over her chest and makes a small show of bowing. "Made by yours truly, of course."

Grace smirks at her. "Of _course_." She takes another, larger sip of it, and hums. She looks up at Dani, and clears her throat. "Um, Grace."

She isn't sure if it was the right move, revealing your name to a stranger, but what else is there to do when a cute barista is standing there near you and you don't want her to leave?

"Dani." Short for Danielle, must be. Grace glances at her drink, and deducts that she really did make this drink. No wonder it's delicious. Only a delicious-looking girl can make a delicious drink. She should know, considering she's burnt the kitchen boiling water. "Wow. You are a nerd."

The suddenness of the statement snaps Grace out of her reverie. She traces Dani's eyes to find the stacks of paper messily and haphazardly thrown around the table, alongside the laptop that has dozens of tabs opened.

Grace blushes because it's true, but there's no fucking way she'll admit that to Dani.

"I'm not a nerd."

"That's what a nerd would say."

Shit. She's right. "Yeah, well, what about you? What do you study in high school?"

Dani's look is one of bemusement. "Culinary. And it's college, actually."

"Oh."

Dani keeps looking at her, and Grace tries to hold her stare until—_damn, this Dani girl can really hold her stare_—she can't do it anymore. She looks away at the only other thing that remotely interests her in this place; the coffee.

The nonexistent hope that Dani will go away is dashed away when Dani slides over to the booth, facing her directly. It would be unethical if there were people in this coffee shop.

"Am I right to assume you're from Legions?" Dani asks, eyeing her workload.

"Yup."

"Cool. I used to go there too. Is Miss Connor still working there?"

At that name, Grace snorts. Who _doesn't _know that hippie, free-soul, badass, strict, war veteran, mother of the famous motivational speaker John Connor, the school's PE coach? "Yeah. You know her?"

"I was her favorite student." Dani beams. "She hated my guts, of course, but she secretly loves me, I can tell."

Yeah. Grace can believe that.

For someone who gives too little shits to care about decent conversations, Grace maintains herself surprisingly well. It mostly has to do with Dani herself. This girl is a charmer through and through, and Grace loves her for it. She's charmed by her.

Conversating becomes not only easy, but enjoyable, even if the topics are meaningless by her standards. Sometimes, she muses, it's nice to simply make meaningless small talks.

"So you wanted to be an engineer?" Grace answers, sipping the last remnants of her coffee.

"Yeah. It's silly, I kno—"

"No, no. Not at all." Grace thinks she may've been rude, cutting her off, but that thought is dispelled when Dani smiles gratefully at her. Dani wistfully looks outside, where the sun has begun to set, Grace realises, reminiscing about her past.

"So, yeah. But then life happens. Pops opened up this shop, and decided I should work here for the time being."

"Do you at least enjoy it here?"

Dani shrugs, and looks at Grace, content and easygoing. "It's not so bad. Especially when I get to meet cuties like you."

"Oh, I um…"

_Is she hitting on me? She can't be hitting on me. She's way out of my league. Plus, she's in college, for Christ's sake! Why would a college student date a 'kid'?! _

"What about you?"

Grace snaps back from her spacing out. "Huh?"

"Tell me about yourself." Dani plays with the empty mug, twirling circles around the structure of it with her manicured finger.

"I thought I just told you."

Dani chuckles, as though Grace has said something dumb. And who knows? Maybe she did say something dumb, and she's just too dumb to realise it. "No, no. I don't want to know whatever this is you're trying to learn. I want to know you."

"Oh." _So maybe she _is _hitting on me. _

Dani's smile confirms it.

"Yeah. _Oh_."

Things get easier and harder after that. Grace is ecstatic to find that Dani is, in fact, interested in her, but also really fucking scared because she seriously doesn't want to screw this up.

Grace manages to snatch a kiss on the hand. Sure, yeah, it's old-school, but it's chivalrous, and she'd rather die than let chivalry wither away.

Dani responds by cupping her in the cheeks by one hand, and dragging her face into hers, a shocked pair of lips crushing against a hungry one.

So yeah. That happened.

Oh, wow. That fucking happened.

Holy shit! That really fucking happened!

The only reason why Grace even thinks about anything other than how _hot _that was is her phone buzzing, which soon reveals an angry string of texts from her parents, asking her where she is and why she isn't responding to them.

She fishes for her wallet, only for Dani to rest her hand on top of Grace's, saying, "It's on the house."

Grace frowns and is about to argue, but then thinks better of it.

"I'll pay you back next time I come here."

"Oh? So there _is_ a next time?"

Grace nods and grins dopily, transfixed by the flame of joy slowly smothering to life in Dani's eyes and smile. "Yeah. What time is the shop most empty?"

Dani's grin is as wide as hers. Grace finds that she likes her smile, and would like to see it more often. She must do whatever it takes to see that smile more often. It's on her To Do List now. "Exactly at this time."

"Great!" Grace beams, walking backwards to the exit of the coffee shop because she wants to keep seeing Dani's face for as long as she can. "So same time tomorrow, yeah?"

Her dumb decision to walk backwards, of course, gets her a bump on the head when she hits the wall. Dani's laugh makes it half worth it. "I don't even have your number!"

"I'll give it to you, along with the money I owe you!"

So Grace leaves the coffee shop with a new crush.

Because, as we all know, the only reason coffee shop exists is for two people to fall in love.

Wouldn't you agree?


End file.
